Cold around the corner! in A small but passable life.

Let’s get the weather news out of the way first. Friday night was a fifty degree night. Saturday was a thirty-five degree night. Last night was a sixty degree night. Today it was 74 degrees outside, and 85 in the van.

And all that will soon be a distant memory. Starting tomorrow and forecast for nine days out it will be COLD. Thirties for the days and twenties for nighttime lows. I guess winter is on it’s way.

Today I went for my usual long walk. All the way up to the post office and back by the grocery to get coffee. Yep, the walk was done on NO morning coffee.

Yesterday while I was out walking Liam we found a couple of pumpkins sitting on the concrete wall by the dumpster just waiting for us. We had to make two trips as they were too big to carry two at a time. Pretty massive pumpkins.

I found a phone card and a check from Mom in the mailbox. I gave Jassy the phone card to load in her phone as hers just expired. She’ll buy me one on Friday. We called Mom to let her know that I’d finally made it to the mailbox. She’d been checking her account online, waiting for me to cash the check.

One of these upcoming cold days will be devoted to processing the pumpkins and getting them ready for the freezer. I confirmed my planned methodology with Mom. She approved. Oven. Scrape. Mix. Measure. Bag. Easy, peasey. We may end up with enough pumpkin to last until next Fall. Pumpkin pie. Pumpkin bread. Pumpkin muffins. Yum!

I’m not going to talk about the last election. The United States is probably doomed. A circus run by psychotic fucking clowns.

I’ve finished reading “Earth Unaware” and “Earth Afire” by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston. I’m waiting on the next book in the Ender saga. Those three books are set one hundred years before “Ender’s Game”. A good story.

Today, walking back, my left knee gave out. Not the usual total collapse, but close. When I got back I found that cane and actually used it to navigate the stairs back down to the van. It’s in the van right now. I’m at the MSU student union. I walked over here without it. Slowly. I really don’t want to get in the habit of using the damn thing. I may try an Ace bandage to stabilize the wobbly feeling. I can’t remember if it was the left or the right knee that collapsed on me last time. I don’t even remember exactly when that was.

The only change in my routine for the upcoming cold snap will be to go up to the apartment at midnight to change into my warm sleepwear and heat up water for my bed warming Nalgene bottle. And maybe slurp a cup of hot chocolate. Winter in the van isn’t bad except for that five minutes getting ready for bed. It’d be nice to put on already warm sleepwear. I’m going to get set up tomorrow afternoon.

Jassy wants to go out and run some errands tomorrow morning. She’s got some used clothes to take to the homeless person place. I may dig some clothes out that I’ve not worn in years. I need to thin my wardrobe anyway. Since the bulk of it is winter clothes this would be a good time to do it, when people could really use them.

Anyway, I’m not caught up with my bookmarks yet but I need to pack up and head over to Hardee’s for my hug from Sarah. No more laptop tonight. I’ll just sit and read the papers.